People As The Subjects Of History

10.1163/ej.9789004175235.i-203.14

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Chapter Summary

The animal symbols of tiger and rabbit, vividly illustrates the heterogeneity of Koreans' historical experience in the 20th century. Japanese colonization, the division of the country and the bloody civil war, exacerbated by the tensions of the cold war era-these are only the most important stages of the history of suffering which certainly afflicted ordinary people most. In 1970 the textile worker Chun Tae-Il doused his body with petrol and set himself on fire in the Pyung Hwa Market in Seoul. In hindsight this incident shook many Korean intellectuals to their core and marks the birth of the Korean minjung movement. The culmination of Minjung theology was a conference in 1979 (Oct. 22.-29.), co-sponsored by the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) and the National Council of Churches of Korea (NCCK), with the harmless title "The People of God and the Mission of the Church".